


Safe Place

by Maggiemaye



Series: Under the Mountain [5]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Schmoopy ending as usual, domestic-ish, ish, not sure how to tag this guy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 03:43:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5812507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maggiemaye/pseuds/Maggiemaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tauriel steps back from him, pulls the mithril garment over her head and lets it settle over her sides. Kili watches her stretch, testing the give of the metal, and he knows she is imagining herself flying across the plain, daggers in hand and fire beneath her heels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe Place

**Author's Note:**

> anddante gave me a lovely prompt recently about Kiliel and a mithril shirt, and I really wanted to run with it. I hope you all enjoy! Also I'm running a low-grade fever at the moment and I'm on a loooot of cold meds...so if you spot any mistakes that's most likely the reason why :)
> 
> The fea and hroa that Tauriel mentions is the elven way of describing the distinction between spirit and body. #funfacts

“Why do you have to go, Nana?”

“I want to come with you!”

“Are you coming back?”

This last comes from Eronel, who ducks his head to hide his trembling lip from his elder brother. Kili props Rhuna on his hip and watches as Tauriel kneels before their two sons. Her face is patient as their stream of questions comes out; she smiles at them in her gentle way, the expression she reserves for them only.

“Of course I am coming back.” She strokes Eronel’s glossy hair and taps his nose with one finger. “Do not trouble your heart with that, my love. But I am a soldier, so I must go. It is my duty to keep all of you safe.”

“Even Ada?” asks Nethelion, clearly skeptical.

Tauriel looks over her shoulder to meet Kili’s eyes. He sees the flash of steel reflected there, lingering from their earlier conversation.

“Especially him,” she says at length, turning back to them. “Now kiss me once more, both of you. When you wake in the morning I will be gone.”

Obediently, they move to embrace her. Eronel lingers a little longer, burrowing his face against her shoulder.  

“Listen to your father.” Her voice shakes the tiniest bit. “You will not give him trouble, will you?”

“No, Nana,” they chorus, and Kili cannot help but snort. With two curious sons and a daughter barely walking, he is quite sure he will be yanking his hair out by the handfuls while Tauriel is gone.

Rhuna begins to squirm in his arms, whining for bed.  

“Come here, my love.” Tauriel takes Rhuna from his arms and gathers her close, humming a little song against the top of her small head. Rhuna settles against her mother’s shoulder, nearly asleep, and Kili manages a smile at the sight of them.

Still singing under her breath, Tauriel turns and disappears down the hallway without a glance behind her. Kili trudges off to their bedchamber alone.

He lights the lanterns. The room has always felt uncomfortably large and luxurious to Kili, who had spent his youth sleeping in more cramped quarters. Tonight, though, he is glad of the distance it will place between himself and Tauriel.

He knows he is sulking. But he isn’t ready to speak to her yet. If he opens his mouth he will have nothing to say but _Don’t go, take me with you, I haven’t slept alone in years and never wanted to again._ Thoughts of Tauriel out on the plain, elegantly decapitating Orcs and firing her arrows with gruesome precision, fill his mind.

There had been a sighting of rogue Orcs advancing on the mountain that morning, and Dwalin had insisted that a scout and an archer must be part of the company that goes to eradicate them. Tauriel had volunteered her skills with only a moment’s hesitation, and Kili’s heart has been sinking like a stone ever since.

The two of them will never leave the mountain to fight at the same time. Tauriel has been adamant about this for years, ever since they’d learned they were expecting a child for the first time. Given her own solitary childhood, Kili understands her insistence. He truly does. But until early that morning, he had never actually allowed himself to envision Tauriel going off without him.

Their conversation about the matter had been…tense. Now that Kili has had some time to think things over, he cringes a bit to recall his behavior. He’d demanded that she remain behind, _forbidden_ her to go, as if he could ever impose his will over her. No one would ever mistake his wife for a tethered spirit, a gem to be encased in stone.  

He is standing in the middle of the room when Tauriel returns from putting their brood to bed; she spares him little more than a glance as she begins gathering her breastplate and gauntlets. Kili watches and knows that he cannot let her leave like this. As much as he despises the circumstance, Tauriel deserves a parting that is not clouded by his own panic and dread.   

“None of that.”

It is the first time he’s spoken all evening, and Tauriel’s head snaps up in surprise. She sets her gauntlets aside, looking uneasy.

“I am not going to argue, and I won’t try to stop you anymore. I promise. It’s just…I have something better.”

She stands ramrod straight as he digs in the trunk at the foot of their bed. Carefully, he draws out the ancient shirt, watching Tauriel’s eyes widen as the _mithril_ ripples and glows in the dim light. She raises a hand to her mouth and stretches the other out to touch the star-bright metal.

“You found this?”

“And added to it. It was made for a dwarf, of course, so it wouldn’t have fit you properly.” Kili holds up the sleeves that he had lengthened, and she touches them.

“You _crafted_ this.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” He gives a hesitant laugh, testing the waters for a joke. Tauriel does not laugh, but her face softens around the eyes.

“But I am surprised, _meleth nin_.” She cups his face in her long, pale hands. “You are an endless, eternal surprise.”

“It’s to protect you,” he explains, leaning into her hand a bit before turning his attention back to the garment. “Not even a Morgul arrow will pierce it.”

They share a tiny smile at that.

“And look,” he goes on, “there is a rune for protection here, and one here for courage. Not that you need that, of course.” Kili points to the places he had woven in runes with silver alloy. They are thin and hardly visible, but at least now Tauriel knows they are there.

“Thank you, Kili. Truly, I am touched.”

“I was waiting for the right time to give it to you.” He thinks about the reason he is bestowing the gift _now_ , and his shoulders cannot help but droop. “I just thought that I would be with you when you wore it.”

Tauriel sighs. “I do not want to discuss this again if you are going to—“

“I know, I know,” he says quickly. “I just…never mind.”

They stand in silence, Kili’s arms swinging awkwardly at his sides.

“Do wood elves have runes, or symbols?” he blurts out, feeling himself go a little red. “I didn’t think of that.”

“We do.” She smiles down at him. “When I come home I will teach you.”

Tauriel steps back from him, pulls the _mithril_ garment over her head and lets it settle over her sides. Kili watches her stretch, testing the give of the metal, and he knows she is imagining herself flying across the plain, daggers in hand and fire beneath her heels.

“Well?” she asks, eyes bright. “How do I look?”

“Stunning,” he says truthfully. “And deadly.”

“As it should be.” She leans down to him, wrapping him in her arms. Kili runs his hands along the cool _mithril_ that covers her and feels himself begin to calm.

“There is no need for this worry, Kili,” she murmurs. “The fight is in my veins, I know very well what I am doing, and I need this. If my skill goes to waste here, then I am of no use to anyone. And I cannot live that way.”

She lifts her face to stare at the curved ceiling, mastering herself. Kili rubs a thumb across the sharp line of her jaw, stroking softly up to her earlobe.

“We can argue about your _usefulness_ another time,” he says with a fleeting smile. Gently, he tilts her face down so that he can meet the hazel of her eyes. “I do not like this, Tauriel, and I’m not sorry for wanting you to stay. Families try to keep each other safe. But I see that it would be wrong to box you in. I am just…afraid.”

“Kili.” She leans down to give him a soft kiss and he tightens his fingers against her back. “You keep me safe always, whether you are at my side or not. I am safe in your love, and in the home and family you have given me. I carry these things with me in my _fea,_ and now,” she smiles, holding up her _mithril_ -clad arm, “on my back. But my _hroa_ is my own to protect. You must leave that to me.”

He draws back and takes her hands into his own; there is little more to be said.

“Well then,” he whispers, raising her fingers to his lips. “Go swiftly now, _amralime,_ so that you may return to us.”

Tauriel reaches into the pocket of her tunic as she shrugs it over her shoulders. In her palm is the rune stone he had given her by the lakeshore, nearly worn smooth by her caressing fingers.

“Of course, _a’maelamin.”_ She presses the stone to her lips before returning it to her pocket. “This promise is not so easily broken.”


End file.
